BW Businessworld organized the 4th BW Business World Higher Education Conference at Telangana on 31st August 2018. This conference which aimed at providing a unique platform for Higher Education Institutions and investors interested in establishing a new operation in Telangana began with an inaugural session chaired by Prof T Papi Reddy, Chairman, Telangana State Council of Higher Education. The keynote speaker for this session was Padma Shri Dr Pritam Singh, CEO LEAD Centre and Former Director IIM Lucknow, MDI, IMI and the chief guest was Sri. Kadiyam Srihari, Hon'ble Deputy Chief Minister & Minister for Education, Government of Telangana. Smt. Ranjeev R Acharya, Spl. Chief Secretary, Education, Government of Telangana; Sri Navin Mittal I.A.S, Commissioner of Collegiate Education and Technical Education, Govt of Telangana; Dr Annurag Batra, Chairman, and Editor in Chief, BW Businessworld Media, New Delhi. and Prof. J. Mahendar Reddy, Vice Chancellor, The ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education were the guests of honor for this session.

Dr. Annurag Batra initiated the session by saying that there is a requirement of 11000 technical educational institutions and 600 Universities in India. Furthermore, he mentioned that Employability, Skill Set and Social Impact are three aspects which need to be considered for the flourishment of the education system in the country. Dr. Batra strongly believes that there is a need to encourage grassroots innovation. He also mentioned the need for the upliftment of E-Cells and encouragement of Industry-Academia interaction for the students to get the practical knowledge/skills which match the industry requirement.

According to Prof T Papi Reddy, industry and institution collaboration should be given special emphasis. While talking about the need of addressing contemporary issues in the field of higher education he said that Curriculum Reforms, Internship availability and Incubator setup are the three objectives with which they were working.

Mentioning about the mission of education Padma Shri Dr. Pritam Singh, said, “Creation of knowledge, dissemination of knowledge and application of Knowledge should be the mission of education.” He also stated that innovation takes place with the question and risk-taking attitude.

Talking about how universities can nurture the creativity of students, Prof J. Mahendar Reddy said that student-centric and socially relevant curriculum should be framed to make the students' industry ready. He further talked about the need for organizing innovative events like Hackathon, FDP’s etc and also stressed on the need of encouraging online education. Prof Reddy believes that internships should be made mandatory for the students to get practical exposure. According to him, Creativity and Innovation should be a continuous process for the successful educational system.